Same Time as Usual?
by maguena1
Summary: Over the years, Number One does not feel like she has much say in her relationship with Christopher Pike - but that doesn't mean she cannot do anything about it.


Title: Same Time as Usual?

Author: Maguena

Disclaimer: Nothing in Star Trek belongs to me.

Timeline: Starts after the pilot.

Author's (extensive) note: First of all, although there is a complete story here, it feels like more should be added. At the same time, this story has been languishing on my hard drive for years because I haven't been able to figure out what else to add. I am strongly hoping to get some suggestions. Also, because this is only self-betaed, I am strongly hoping to get lots of criticism.

The other thing that you need to know is that the story is, in part, a tribute to Bulat Okudjava – who did too many things to list here. The important part, for purposes of this story, is that he was a poet and musician whose songs are among the most deeply humanistic I have ever heard.

You might ask why then I am writing, in essence, a songfic where not only most of my readers will have never heard of the songs and won't know what I am trying to invoke with each one, but due to the language, even if they find the song, won't understand what it means, and won't be in a position to appreciate how every word resounds to every note. I'm not sure myself, but these songs touch me deeply. And I want to express that. And I don't know any other way that this poor, truncated incorporation. I've tried not to make the story depend on understanding the songs. Instead, I hope the tone of them comes through.

Yes, it would have been easier to pick an English-speaking singer. Easier, but not the same.

(Pesnya o pehote)

What was it about having dinner with him that made her paint her nails?

Number One sighed and applied another coat of clear polish. The extra layer added depth and sparkle to the light green, translucent coating of color.

Her fingertips looked as if she'd dipped them in poison, or maybe started turning Vulcan. What kind of message was that sending him? Well, if he couldn't take a little message, maybe she was loving the wrong man.

She wasn't, she reminded herself as she switched hands. She'd figured out the hows, the wherefores, and the why nots. He was worthy of the feelings in her. Frankly, she was happy that her feelings, which seemingly arose without her consent, all those years ago, had chosen so well. When she looked at where love got some women, what kind of men it chose for them, she shuddered.

She fumbled the brush, and had to spend a moment removing a dab of polish from her desktop. After that, she painted the last nail, and waited for it to dry so that she could get dressed. Not that she got dressed up; it was no "date." Just dinner between the captain and the first officer, privately conducted. Might have been something more, but wasn't. The first time he'd invited her to dinner, she'd had such hopes…

He knew how she felt – a familiar humiliation, to remember how he'd learned – but that didn't seem to make any difference in how he treated her. So they had dinner, every week, and they were pretty good friends, and they worked together every day. If he still gave her glances sometimes, and on occasion they teased each other, and he seemed to like her a lot, that still never added up to anything concrete. Maybe it was their positions, maybe it was him, maybe it was her – all she knew, they'd been having dinner for years, and nothing had come of it. But she still painted her nails every time, even though she never wore anything other than her uniform.

As she walked out the door, she knew herself to be a very attractive woman, possessed of poise and intelligence. She hoped that keeping dinner appointments with a man she happened to love and who showed no signs of loving her with the same intensity was not beneath her.

A strand of song drifted through her as she walked, and she automatically translated,

"_With an erratic step,_

Up the unsteady stair; there is no way to safety"

Though there was no stair, the song fit her mood perfectly.

***

(Vobla)

Someone who knew what it was like, who knew war and hunger. It probably said something about her that the person she currently thought of as her nearest kindred spirit had died three centuries ago.

War –_ "There is no indifference it need borrow,"_ she sang again and again, trying out every shading of mood, from despair to grimness, to "could care less."

It had been a colony of four thousand people who had set out to create Utopia, based on the principles of humility and kindness as panacea for any difficulty. Within fifty years, starvation, disease, and war had ravaged not only bodies, but also lofty ideals.

Two major factions – one that believed that people must submit - to necessity, to authority – in order to survive. The other consisted of people who said that they would survive as they wanted.

Number One was born to the Enclave. Ten years in the Creche, then work fifteen-hour days for the benefit of the community for twenty years more, and try to survive the raids. After that, go in for motherhood, where her workday would be reduced to eight hours so that she could bear healthy children. At that point, she no longer need fear raids, because she would be kept protected in the deepest part of the Enclave where Raiders almost never penetrated.

As the Number One child, she was precious. Perhaps it would be her descendants who would finally be free from the crippling diseases. With each generation, the gene manipulations got better and better, producing healthier and healthier children. Even the male infants were surviving better.

It hit them harder, the boys. Their genes were simply more fragile, their bodies simply less resistant. By the age of twenty, women outnumbered men forty to one.

Marriage and family – neither were familiar concepts in the Enclave. People got together if they wanted to, if they liked each other enough. Being chosen by one of the few men was a blessing for some, an abhorrent noose for others, but in either case, it was almost a guarantee that whatever relationships you had until then would be disrupted, and that sooner or later, he'd choose someone else, and you would be left to whatever he had left you.

All that could matter was paternity. All the children of one father were gathered into one crèche.

Number One's crèche had been a small one – her father had unstable genes, and only about ten percent of the gene pairings developed into live fetuses that could be implanted into the women. But this very instability, when properly matched, could be manipulated as much as fifteen percent from what was "normal" for the ordinary human genome, and produced some of the best, most resistant organisms, in the whole Enclave. At one time, they even managed to replace seventeen percent of the genetic matter without killing the fetus. When the child was born, they immortalized the event in her name, as they did in each generation.

So there she had been, surrounded by her eighteen half-siblings, watched over by the nannies. The choice of whether to come to his crèche was always left to the genitor of the crèche. Some stayed there all the time; some didn't ever bother with their offspring.

Number One's genny came about once every two months, and it was always a great event. Early to rise on the mornings your genny comes – you don't want him to think you're lazy. The whole day, scrubbed forehead to toe, dressed in best clothes, using the best manners, so that when he finally came, they could crowd up to his chair, and wait for him to notice them. Number One did not think about her siblings very often, but when she did, this was always the memory – the same strained eagerness on every face (Will he notice me? Will he notice _me_? I've been working so hard…) Even she, who, by virtue of her superior genes, was almost always assured of special attention, strained along with the rest (Will he see how hard I've been working on this project for him?)

And because her genes were good, because she was so special, he allowed her to sit on his lap, and tell him about how hard she had been working and studying. At the time, that was all she needed. Looking back, she often wondered what he had really thought about her. Had she been special only because of her genes? Did he ever like her for more than that? Or was it the other way around, and he liked her because of how hard she had worked to impress him? Because that had been her main purpose in life at that age – to get noticed by him. The other children thought she was crazy – he already gave her more than he gave anyone else. She couldn't explain why she felt she had to do all these things. Sometimes, nowadays, she regretted having worked so hard, to the exclusion of all else; but it had been good training.

Genetically manipulated to survive even on tiny amounts of food, she never was warm – too hungry to be warm. She remembered the thin, blue hands of the nannies, dividing up the daily ration. With her eyes, she begged for a bigger piece, too hungry to be unselfish, but too well trained to cry. Nobody ever cried for food, and the divisions were always absolutely equivalent.

Winter was hard, and early spring, harder. Too many raids, when even without the thieving bastards, there just wasn't enough food to feed all of the Enclave inhabitants. Too few ways to fill up stores. Too few ways to make decisions about who would get the food.

She was the Number One child. She knew that she would never be allowed to starve to death.

She was the Number One child. That didn't save her from never being allowed as much food as she wanted.

She dreamed about food, and in the winter, stuffed snow into her mouth till her gums bled, just for the sake of having something filling up her insides. She also compulsively chewed needle branches and grass. The taste came back in her dreams, sometimes – acrid, slightly sour, all taste and no substance, stringy and prickly like hunger itself.

She haunted ant heaps and plotted ways to crush the ants without getting bitten. They tasted like sour candy (which she got once a year, so ants were better). Formic acid, they told her in school. You have formic acid deficiency, because we can't get you enough of the vitamins and nutrients you need. So you just get them any way you can.

Sixteen years of hunger, cold, and work, discipline and striving. War. Survival. She had good genes, and she could survive, yes, even on the tiny scraps of food she got. It was during her sixteenth year of life that a Starfleet ship arrived in response to a distress signal dispatched nearly seventy years ago, just before the last signal towers had been dismantled for parts.

"Oh, you poor children!"

She heard that from every relief worker she met, and she met many. Standing there with a shovel in her hand, her muscles toned by years of manual work, her mind honed by years of study and discussion, she watched their rescuers go about their business. She took the food they offered eagerly, but watched them in puzzlement.

Oh, you poor children!

Later, much, much later, she came to understand what had prompted them to say this; after she had seen how the rich worlds of the Federation functioned. Still, the phrase jarred with something within her. Her sense of sufficiency, of self-reliance, of working alongside everybody else, didn't count for anything with her rescuers. Only the number of her years, the thinness of her body. They did not care that her menses actually came early, two months before her sixteenth birthday – a promise to everyone in the Enclave that the gengineering was working well, producing early ripening. A promise that they could survive. To the rescuers, this was another reason to say "Poor child!"

She did not mind too much when all the Enclave was broken up and they (alongside the thieving bastards, whom they weren't allowed to fight with, anymore) were sent to richer worlds. She had never felt very much a part of the community, despite the daily Invocations. Even though she was fiercely proud of what they had accomplished with so little – their rescuers, for all that they had more and better things, could never have done that – she was a pragmatist. New worlds meant more food, more warm clothing, no raids, no harsh demands. New places meant new ways to prove herself, and new learning.

Still, somehow, she missed the old way of life a little. Even though she knew how much she had gained with the change, she could not stop herself from wishing that her new life was just a little more like her old life. Orderly, predictable, and with many opportunities for her to excel.

She joined Starfleet as soon as she could.

***

(Nochnoy Razgovor)

Not once, but many times, she wished for a guide, neat instructions on how to change their relationship into a personal one. It was like meeting in darkness, unable to see each other, and unable to see the way. There was a song about that, too. She snorted a bit at the thought. Not that the woman's directions to the lost traveler had been all that clear. "Along the red river, my joy, along the red river. Till the blue mountain, my joy, till the blue mountain. Ride towards the fire, my joy, and you'll find it easily." Only, the fire had gone out, hadn't it?

Then, with sudden wistfulness, she thought that the endearment was such an apt one, if only she dare use it.

I can't, she thought over and over. I'm not that kind of person, and we have our positions to think about. I wish I could.

She imagined it, in every sentence of every conversation they had. No matter how inappropriate. "Here's the planetary analysis results you requested, my joy," was extremely inappropriate.

As the doorchime of her office rang, she had to wrench her mind away from those thoughts for the fifteenth time that day.

"What is it, Mr. Spock?"

For the space of three seconds, he looked at her steadily, then gathered a breath, and said, "I would like to have my schedule modified."

"Oh? How?" If he was going to ask for more hours, she'd have to give him a lecture.

He surprised her this time. "I would like to take third shift instead of second shift two days from now."

"Plans?" she asked absently, and heard a "Yes" as she pulled up the ship schedule, and tried to figure out where he fit in. The system long needed an overhaul – maybe she'd ask Spock to do it, one of those days. He'd like that.

She frowned as she finally found the information she needed. "Oh, that's where… Meyster was supposed to take third that night, but he's off for this entire week because he's caught a nasty virus the last survey mission… Shuley's covering for him, I see… working double shifts, too. She needs the challenge, she's gotten far too complacent." Normally, she'd not verbalize, but this would be his job, someday. She, then, would have captaincy, although there was always unexpected death. She really wanted the captaincy, though. Perhaps it was for the best that she could not work out her relationship with Chris – two captains would have a very hard time meeting. Should she put her attempts on hold till both of them retired? She frowned at herself. _What lengths will you go to, to avoid trying for a resolution?_

"Perhaps she might work first and second, while I work third?" he suggested.

She wrenched her mind back. "I'll have to clear it with her, and it doesn't stop there – Paltaran's the one working first, and you know how much he hates having his schedule changed. Then we have to stick _him_ somewhere. Are you sure your plans can't be changed to suit your normal schedule?"

"It is not a thing that can be changed," he said.

"Well, maybe you'd like to tell me what's so important?"

Immediately, she wondered whether that had been a good thing to say. He was so quiet that she could easily visualize his urge to clamp down warring with the fact that they had a friendship of a sort – they shared a similarity of language, and that led to a way of confiding in each other, without saying too much.

In the end, he told her. "I have made some calculations – when one includes all such things as vacations, then, at 17:34:23 that day, will be the moment that I have spent more of my life off Vulcan than on it." He suddenly seemed to turn slightly uncertain. "I would like to have the time to meditate after that moment passes."

A few blinks, and she nodded gently. "I'll arrange it, Mr. Spock. Unless there's anything else, you're dismissed."

He left; she got busy rearranging. Her thoughts wandered, mostly between what she wanted to say to Chris, and the oddness of wanting to mark such a moment. She didn't miss her home planet, not that much. Of course, she also didn't even try to conform to the expectations set by that planet. (A good thing, too; for an instance, it was hardy a good model of what to do in a male-female relationship. Relationships between women were always so much easier. She did have to admit, though, that Chris was very much like several of the older women of the Enclave that she'd admired, and very different from the men, and she still didn't know how to talk to him.)

What she had done could be most accurately described as having left at the first opportunity, and never looked back.

Was her inability to say the things everyone else said so easily due to her upbringing? She thought it could be. A hot ache of resentment swept through her arms on down, spreading her fingers like claws. She had wanted to take only the best things from her past. That was the point of growing older and wiser.

She shrugged her odd mood off. She had work to do.

Even when dinnertime came, and they were alone – when she had relaxed and determined to do what was right – she thought she might say it then, but her tongue blocked her mouth, and her throat was tight, and she said another word.

Which made her so disgusted with herself that she determined that she would say it, forgetting all the reasons she'd been using to stop herself. Still, her mouth was not cooperating, and she couldn't seem to get past the block.

Then they were standing at the door, and she still hadn't said anything. With a kind of desperate courage, she composed the sentence in her head, then pushed it off down the hill and closed her eyes to prevent herself from stopping the crash. She heard herself saying "I would like not to leave, because you are my joy," and opened her eyes.

"Really?"

"Really."

So slowly, he reached both hands towards her shoulders. She swayed forward in order to facilitate the process.

Then it was all right; they were embracing, and he was saying, in a very low, rending voice, "I'm not sure this can work, but for so wonderful a declaration, we should at least try."

"I'm afraid, too," she murmured back.

His arms tightened. "You are so wonderful, so courageous... what are you doing here?"

Because she had no answer besides the one already given, they moved on to wordless endearments, trying hard to imprint each other with their sincerity.

***

(Molodoy gusar)

First and foremost, the battle was fought with the body. Whether digging a spade through the frozen earth, or bearing children, it was her body which separated victory from defeat. She had always taken pride in making a weapon of her body. The battle was fought first and foremost with the body, then with rightness of purpose, evidenced by the discipline, and only then with the mind and tools and other extensions.

It had been hard, at first, to realize that on the soft worlds of the Federation, they wanted her mind more. She had felt so resentful, sitting in remedial classes, studying things that seemed to have nothing to do with the world, like higher math. She'd been considered unduly interested in learning, back in the Enclave, and she had proven herself by studying things that were useful. It took becoming good at higher math for her to see the use of it for her future career. After a time, she had taken joy in the way her mind had honed; her victories she gained with her mind now. The battle was still fought, still would be fought no matter what. If asked about her religious feelings, that was approximately what she would have answered.

Still and always, she felt her body with an animal's sharp awareness – the boundaries of the world that was hers ended at the limits of her body; her world was its sensations, and oddly enough, that also distanced her from her body. Usually, she was constantly aware of it, as she would be of a computer's display screen, and cared as little for it in emotions, except to make sure it ran smoothly.

Except, from now on, there would be more.

A weapon and a tool, and how she had been surprised by a roommate, who believed in being a vessel of holy light, and who entered fits of ecstasy on a regular basis.

A weapon and a tool – never a vessel of pleasure. Until now.

***

(Proshchan'ye s osen'yu)

The end came quietly a few weeks later. A mission. Within his sight, a fatal mistake that cost a crewwoman her life. "I can't do this," spoken quietly, with his back to her. In her quarters, turning on the music full blast in the hope that sound could fill the room. Setting the player to skip randomly, and trying to find any easier meaning to what had happened.

A song she didn't listen to, very often, because it seemed so pointless. But today when she was tattered with discomfort, some fluttering bit of her mind caught on the words, and she wondered about why a language would have a word mean both "goodbye" and "forgive me."

Oh.

That was why.

***

(Chudesnyy val's)

In one of the many corridors of the Federation Center, they met again. Awkward and hopeful, they had been unable to simply nod and pass. She knew how it would go, like hearing an old song. Awkward pleasure, and nothing said. Moments in each other's company, and nothing resolved. Its own kind of pleasure and safety, but not what she wanted.

She blinked at the turn her thoughts had taken. Safety? Yes. She had grown accustomed to these ways, this dance, this melody. Rooted in it. She didn't really want a change, because she didn't know any way they could be right for each other. _"The musician leans into the flute;/ I would lean into you/ But you must be the source/ which doesn't save."_

He couldn't, could he? And what did she need saving from, anyway? Only years of sameness, perhaps. And now their gazes broke, and he turned to pass, awkwardly pulling a stack of documents close to his body in order to avoid bumping her with them.

So for once in her life, she stopped staring after him, and instead called out his name. He turned around, and she found within herself her own source of asking, "Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?"

And the very triteness of the words broke the sameness that had built between them, and he answered, with a slowly spreading smile on his face, "Yes."

She asked, "You do know that I want us to be more?"

A shared and growing smile.

He answered. "Yes. Me too."

***

(Davayte vosklitzat')

Why it could never be simple, she didn't know. So they loved each other; so they deserved happiness and simple endings; so they deserved to be at peace with feeling this love.

The journey was over for the moment; they had come back to Earth. He had introduced her to his aged parents, and there had been a quiet conversation with no great upheavals. Yet it still wasn't simple. She was not sinking into acceptance and contentment, as she had expected. Her feelings refused to become a background melody to the business of living her life with this man as much as she could, given that both of them would leave each other for long stretches of time. She had resolved to bear it, and to enjoy herself in the meantime. Why did she still feel so complicatedly?

And she still didn't know what to say to this man. She had learned how to talk to him; she had learned how to get endearments out of her mouth, and how to share her troubles with him, and how to listen to him, and she had even learned how to say what she wanted to say in a language that twisted her meanings, but mostly in a way that he could decode. Only in response, however, could she do those things. She had not learned how to make the start of a conversation that was not about work. She wondered why she could not, told herself that of course she could, at least in the future, and then quietly told herself that no, she could not. She had looked at how he did it; it seemed simple. It was not.

And now they were dancing to celebrate the start of living together; not just in the same vicinity, but sharing space and sharing time. He had arranged for what he called a "romantic evening" to "christen the rooms." He had explained the ritual to her – it consisted of dinner made of fine foods, candlelight, music about love to which they would dance, and then retiring to bed to make love for a long time. She understood and approved of the activities, even if she could not quite grasp the significance of the forms of those activities.

"Doesn't it make you feel romantic?" he asked, and it was clear from his voice that he was concerned about doing it wrong. "I thought it made everyone feel romantic – it does me."

"I like it," she said, and he translated.

"But you're not sure what about it is romantic."

She loved his ability to understand. "Yes. I truly like it, nonetheless."

"Well," he smiled, "maybe it's learned, after all. I'd be glad to do this as often as you needed, in that case."

She smiled at him.

They had each chosen a variety of melodies they enjoyed which would convey their ideas of love. She had suggested it, in the hope that in at least that way, she would be able to start a conversation.

She had appreciated his choices; most were about love that could not die, no matter what came between the lovers, or for how long. She knew he wanted her to feel safe. Even more, she enjoyed the songs which described love in humorous ways – they made her feel that it could be simple, after all.

But their selections alternated, and the next one up was one of hers. She knew he would not understand the language; but she knew what it said, and if he asked, she would translate.

The rhythm was complex; she almost stumbled before he righted her.

"Let us exclaim,

Let us see the wonder of each other.

We need not fear

Worshipful words.

Let us say

Compliments to each other,

They all are, after all,

Love's joyful moments."

Again, she thought; someone else had the idea that love was simple, that the actions you took for it were simple. Not so.

She was glad when he declared that his legs hurt. She turned off the music and helped him into the bedroom, where she finally felt romantic.

Years later, when she was listening to the song again, she noticed that it did not say that love was simple at all.

***

(A vsyo-taki jal')

Who the hell was Spock to make that kind of a decision? He had not loved Chris. Admired him, certainly, and was devoted to him, and felt that he owed his old captain something, but he had no right…

He had no right because she loved Chris so much. Only the loved ones were allowed to make decisions like that.

She was his loved one. Never mind that he had sent her away. He must have thought that she could not love him anymore, but she had. He must have thought that he was of no more use to her, but he was. She loved him, and wanted him with her no matter what. He could not unmake her status as his loved one just because he wanted, no more than she could unlove him.

She would have made it work. She would have waited until Chris came to an understanding that so much had been lost and so much yet remained; she would have talked to him. She would have made him see that she loved him.

If anyone had asked her, only asked her – she might have agreed that this was the better choice. That if this was what it took to make Chris happy, this was what he should have. If he preferred an illusion woman to her, so be it. If she could no longer be what he needed, she would have risked her life and her captaincy to bring him to the Talosians. That was her right.

"To the perdition with your grand gestures, Mr. Spock," she said aloud to the room.

Spock had known, or should have known, that another person had a better claim to be making those kinds of gestures. He had cheated her of any chance.

Her mouth tasted bitterness.

To the perdition with it, she told herself as she went into the kitchen to get tea. Chris had sat here and watched her retrieve the cups from the replicators. He had told her that he needed her. That he always would. Even if only to make tea.

That had been a joke, he had explained. He had been so afraid that she was incapable of understanding what he meant. She had done her best, though. Usually, she succeeded.

If it was someone who could never misunderstand him that he needed, she told herself as she scalded her tongue with a hasty sip of tea, then to perdition with him, too. She had been good enough when he was healthy. He had never even given her a chance to prove that she could be good enough when he was so badly hurt.

It hurt, yet she could understand the allure of the illusions. He had always worried too much about making mistakes. Now he was free of that particular worry, because he was no longer responsible for anything, not even maintaining relationships. Hadn't she wanted that for him, sometimes? A place and a time where he could stop worrying. He deserved that kind of safety…

But she couldn't accept that that was all he needed.

Only he could say what he really needed. She had learned that much in the few years with him. But others, including herself, were there for him in order to discover what else he needed of the things that he had never considered.

So, she thought, she should go to his safe harbor and say… she had never learned how to say such things first, and this time, he would not start the conversation.

Safe harbor… wasn't there a song about its dangers?

"Now, we have no need to blunder along the street by touch

We have gained everything – the certain harbor, the light.

But it's still a pity that sometimes, over our victories;

We raise pedestals which are higher than the victories."

Yes, she would say that thing to him – that there was no reason to stop where he was and as he was. She would give him the choice that nobody else could.

I have the words, she thought, for what seemed like the first time in her life.

I have time enough to practice the words that I need to get out.

I have something for him that no one else has.

Take that, Chris. You took everything else offered.

Now, how to get to that planet…

_The End_


End file.
